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Some people like cars, some have an affinity for sport, while others can discuss the sheen of their pet’s coat for hours on end. We all have our own weaknesses … or strengths depending on where you stand on dog fur. My passion is food. Sometimes healthy, occasionally cholesterol-inducing, butter soaked sheer indulgence.

When sitting down to a meal, do you ever take a moment to think about where the food came from? Sadly, I think most people would say the local supermarket.

On a larger scale, a study by KPMG found that nearly half of global manufacturers don’t have any visibility past their direct suppliers. Meaning they cannot see beyond them, to their suppliers’ suppliers. This can have huge implications, especially in industries where traceability is required (such as food and pharmaceutical).

In Part 1 of this blog I discussed how ERP software helps you better manage the “demand” side of the supply chain. Now let’s look at the “supply” side.

One of your most important “supply” functions is purchasing, and using an ERP system helps purchasing become more systematic and efficient:

You can track all of the details against purchase orders, such as pricing, quantities ordered and received, and expected vs. actual delivery dates. This data also lets you monitor supplier performance.

The world has become a smaller place, and supply chains have become longer. Managing your supply chain effectively gives you a competitive advantage (ask Walmart and Apple) and there are many ways that ERP software can help a business manage the entire breadth of its supply chain.

Let’s start at the “demand” end of the supply chain. In Part 2 of this blog, we’ll look at the “supply” side.

Is your Procurement Department living in the 21st century? Gone are the days of procurement existing simply as a purchasing function - although its roots are in purchasing, modern procurement makes organizations smarter and more profitable through sourcing diversification, whilst improving both input costs and cash flow.

I’ve reflected recently on the classic depiction of someone waking early, walking out their front door down the driveway and picking up the newspaper delivered in the early hours. This notion still holds a certain appeal, but nowadays everyone operates on the premise of information on demand. You just need to appreciate the sheer number of travelers, whether it is for business or leisure, at an airport pouring over their laptops and mobile devices, translating information and tirelessly capturing information onto spreadsheets or similar tools, producing reports, and extracting information.

Regular readers of the blog may remember my post “owning change” written just after my wedding in November 2013. It doesn’t take a maths genius to work out that it took me a few more years than most to find my perfect partner. Fortunately finding the perfect partner in ERP wasn’t so difficult. I first saw SYSPRO in 2001 and have been a dedicated fan ever since.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) works a lot like barcodes letting you scan products, or anything else you put a barcode on, and instantly get serial and product information on that object. The big difference is that barcode scanners physically need line-of-sight to the barcode while RFID can automatically read a tag if it is within range.

Check out my post on RFID vs Barcodes for more information on how these technologies compare.

To continue to be successful, businesses today consistently feel pressure to cut costs, outperform the competition and deliver high levels of customer satisfaction. While some find this to be a daunting task, others harness the power of Enterprise Resource Planning systems and their ability to streamline daily business operations. Businesses experience a multitude of benefits after implementing an ERP system, and this blog post explores three of those benefits.

I’ve been in the ERP business for a while now and have helped all sorts of organizations with their systems from non-profit, to government, to businesses small and large.

One of the most interesting and complex ERP deployments that I’ve had the pleasure of participating in was for Santa (and Santa generously gave me permission to share what we did for him so that other businesses can learn from his lessons).